(n.) The state of growing up from childhood to manhood or womanhood; youth, or the period of life between puberty and maturity, generally considered to be, in the male sex, from fourteen to twenty-one. Sometimes used with reference to the lower animals.

adolescence babyhood beginnings birth boyhood cradle freshman year genesis girlhood inception inchoation incipience incipiency incunabula infancy maidenhead maidenhood minority nascence nascency nativity origin origination parturition pre-teens pregnancy puberty subteens teens youth